Firefighters battle a blaze on S. Daubenberger Road that started when a man using a welding torch cut into a fuel tank.

A fire sparked by a welding torch burned through several junk cars and hay bales before firefighters were able to contain it.The fire broke out at 12:30 p.m. today in a storage yard in the 2100 block of S. Daubenberger Road.The blaze was touched off when a man used a welding torch to cut into a fuel tank, which still had diesel fuel inside it, said Turlock Rural Fire Department spokesman Royjindar Singh.The fuel tank exploded with flames, which set the nearby grass on fire. The fire burned along both sides of a fence line and spread to several junked vehicles.The burning vehicles set off another blaze when the flames lit up a stack of about 50 hay bales.In addition to Turlock Rural Fire Department, crews from Denair, Keyes, Mountain View, and Merced County responded to the fire. Stanislaus County Haz-Mat team was also called out to the location because of the diesel fuel, Singh said.The fire smoldered for hours in the wrecked cars and the hay bales, but the firefighters were able to keep it from spreading to the other larger hay stacks nearby.By the end of the day, the scenes looked like Christmas in June with the white foam piled high over the scattered hay.